Battle of the Schools

about this event

Battle of the Schools is a weekend, in-person AI/ML hackathon between the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo, hosted by UTMIST and WAT.ai. Over 200 student builders from both schools come together at the Bahen Centre for 24 hours of hacking, workshops, and a rivalry that only one campus gets to win.

First place in each of the three sponsor tracks scores a point for your school. Whichever school wins the most tracks takes home the Maple Cup and keeps it until next year. Side-quests (Clean Hacker Space, Most Aesthetic Slides, and more) earn bonus school points along the way.

Key details: When — Saturday, September 12 to Sunday, September 13, 2026. Doors open 9:00 AM Saturday; hacking runs from 11:00 AM Saturday to 11:00 AM Sunday. Where — Bahen Centre for Information Technology, 40 St. George St, Toronto, ON (University of Toronto St. George campus). Who — Undergraduate and graduate students from any university; you do not need to be in computer science, and you do not need to have done a hackathon before. Teams — 2 to 4 people; come with a team or join one at the team-forming session during the opening ceremony. Cost — Free; meals, snacks, cloud compute, model APIs, robotics simulators and sponsor mentors are provided all weekend. Register — Apply at utwat.ca/apply, then register here on Devpost so you can submit your project. Homepage: utwat.ca · Contact: utwat.bots@gmail.com

Tracks: There are three tracks, each run and judged by the sponsor behind it. You can enter more than one if your project honestly fits. Robotics with BracketBot — Best Use of Next-Gen Robots: build the most compelling thing you can on BracketBot's brand-new generation of robots. Prizes: a Bambu Lab 3D printer for every member of the top three teams (P1S for 1st, A1 for 2nd, A1 mini for 3rd). Web Agents with Steel.dev: build creative AI solutions powered by browser use. Prizes: $1,000 cash + $600 in Steel Pro credits + $500 in OpenRouter credits (1st); gaming keyboards or headphones + $300 in Steel Pro credits (2nd); JBL speakers + $100 in Steel Pro credits (3rd). Plus two wildcards open to everyone: the Steel Computer Wildcard ($500 cash) and Most Unhinged Idea ($200 Uber Eats gift card). Healthcare with Toralis Labs — Most Unique Use of the Healthcare Dataset: do something genuinely original with Toralis Labs' healthcare dataset to solve a real problem in healthcare. Prizes: Keychron V1 Max mechanical keyboard (1st), Logitech G305 wireless mouse (2nd), Anker 10,000 mAh power bank (3rd). See the Prizes section for the full breakdown.

Schedule — Saturday, September 12: 9:00–10:00 AM registration opens, check in, get your wristband (BA Atrium). 10:00–11:00 AM opening ceremony: tracks, rules and prizes announced — don't skip it (BA1160). 11:00 AM hacking begins; workspaces, mentors and help desk open. 12:00–1:00 PM lunch (BA Atrium). 1:00–2:00 PM workshop with Steel.dev (BA2135). 2:30–3:30 PM workshop with BracketBot (BA2135). 4:00–4:30 PM Accenture AMA (BA2135). 5:00–6:00 PM panel with Cognition: Cloud Agents & the Future of Autonomous Coding (BA2135). 6:00–7:00 PM dinner (BA Atrium / BA2135). 7:30–9:00 PM workshop with Toralis Labs (BA2135). 9:00 PM onwards evening activities (BA Atrium). Overnight: hacking continues in the workspaces.

Schedule — Sunday, September 13: 8:00–9:00 AM breakfast (BA Atrium). 11:00 AM hacking ends and submissions close; have your repo pushed and your demo working before this. 12:30–2:30 PM judging — stay with your project and be ready to demo (BA2165 / 2175 / 2185 / 2195). 1:00 PM lunch, judging continues (BA Atrium). 4:00–5:00 PM finalist presentations (BA1160). 5:30–6:15 PM closing ceremony: track winners and the Maple Cup (BA1160). 6:15 PM clean up, clear your space, take everything with you.

Where things are: BA Atrium — check-in, all meals, and the help desk: your first stop for anything going wrong. BA1160 — main stage: opening ceremony, finalist presentations, closing ceremony. BA2135 — all workshops, panels and AMAs. BA2139 — mentor room; stuck on something? Go here. BA2145, BA2155, BA2159 — hacking workspaces; grab a table anywhere. BA2165, BA2175, BA2185, BA2195 — judging rooms (Sunday only); you'll be told which one and when.

Sponsors: Battle of the Schools 2026 is backed by Steel.dev, BracketBot, Toralis Labs, Cognition, Accenture, Shopify, Anthropic and Astral. Their engineers will be on site all weekend to mentor, run workshops and judge their tracks, and most of them are hiring.

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